The fear of the day.
 

It seems that every day the media brings me something new to fear. For example, yesterdays fear was gas pipes in your home that can explode if your house is hit by lightning.

I thought it might help us all to talk about these fears so that we can deal with our emotions and comfort each other.

So with out further anxiety inducing delay I bring to you, the fear of the day:

Drug resistant staph might kill more people than aids.

Not surprised. With all the antibiotics and antibacterial stuff around these days the bugs and germs are constantly mutating and becoming stronger.

We're not helping ourselves by sanitizing our lives. What ever happened to the old adage "God made dirt, so dirt don't hurt"?

We're all gonna die someday!!! Yikes!!! :eek:

There has been a commercial I have been hearing for a comedy show that Bob Sagat will be a part of (BTW: don't judge Bob Sagat by America's Funniest Home Videos or Full House - he is actually a fairly funny, and raunchy, comedian).


The one teaser bit that they give of his is about a study that shows that people's number one fear is public speaking and the number two fear being death. Bob observes that at a funeral, people would rather be in the casket than the one giving the eulogy.

That's why I don't watch TV news anymore.
I also only check the online news twice. Once in the morning and once at night.

:)

Note: stay away from above mentioned places.

But.....it could happen to YOU!

Is the evening news killing you? Details at 11.

if we got exposed to the weaker stuff.. we might be more immune to the stronger stuff... yet we kill the weaker stuff...

Yes... whether our faults by making the big bug... or natural stuff... we're doomed!

There's this organism or amoeba or whatever the heck it is that lives in warm, fresh water. It gets into your system - perhaps through the nose when your child jumps into the water at Lake Elsinore - and then dies from it a week or less later!

The Amazon has some really nasty things that crawl up various and sundry orfices and don't make nice. I still swam in it.

Today I fear that some of my dreams may come true

This happened at a lake near Phoenix just this summer. Ick!

Seriously, though, and without trying to go into the man made global warming debate again, this is how I regard the whole global hysteria.

Thank god I don't live in LA! I am safe!

it can happen

if you really want to know how I know.
( a bit of a downer)


I was exposed to it repeatedly. never showed the remotest sign. while dangerous, its not something to worry about unless youre already immune compromised in one way or another. for the most part a good healthy person would fight it off probably without ever noticing.

the biggest problem is, its incredibly easy to spread

oh, Im just down the road is san diego. we get the same here. spinach, plumbing hooked into brown water, ecoli, rats...blah blah.

why else would someone suffer through a news report but for the bad news?
except for the weather, most times I'll pop into a news site somewhere, make sure the world isnt going to end in the next 10 min and right back to a life already in progress.

somehow, I dont feel less for missing out on it

I think the steady diet of fear-inducing things has kind of numbed me to it all. The weirdness of this past seven years hasn't helped, either. I'm really just into outliving you guys.;):p

Life is a fatal disease for which there is no cure.

It's Wednesday October seventeenth. Your fear of the day, direct from a banner headline on CNN.com is:


Over the last 37 Years an average of 2 infants per year have died as a result of taking cough medicine. Out of Millions of doses per year.

Have these meds done no good at all? Sure they don't cure the colds but they do treat the symptoms allowing for more rest and a quicker recovery time. Now that these meds are being removed can we expect more colds to progress into walking pneumonia or other complications? How many parents will start giving their kids adult cold meds (you know some will) and what effect will that have?

People die from milk and peanut allergies every year but we don't ban these products? Why not? Because a very small percentage of people having a sever allergic reaction does not mean a product is unsafe.

Perhaps a more reasonable course of action would be to educate parents that you don't dose the kid up at the first sign up a sniffle. As our pediatrician told us "Fever is your friend" up to a point.

Moonliner beat me to it.
I was going to post about that...
:)

It's Thursday October eighteenth. Your fear of the day, direct from our fear mongering friends at Good Morning America is:


That's right bucko, you are damn lucky to be alive and not suffering from permanent brain trauma. Some of the toys we played with are apparently toxic enough that the Bush administration would probably label them as weapons of mass destruction. Hey wait, you don't think....

So everyone please dig into those closets, raid them boxes in the garage and quickly expunge any reminders of your childhood you find lurking there. Just be sure to use the proper hazmat disposal protocols in doing so.

And remember, it's not just toys kiddies!
Prolly lots of that underneath the warious coats of paint in my kitchen, at least 6 layers and the apartment was built in 1939-40.

Anyone want to come over for dinner? Hee hee!

Frankly, if a toy won't kill at least one in 1,000 frequent users then it probably isn't a toy worth having.

'course I grew up playing lawn darts all day at every family gathering.

I had a chemistry set when I was 10. My parents probably would be jailed for that now.

By the way, visible mojo for the quote in your sig line that motivated me to start this thread.

So did I! It even had an oil jar fueled "bunsen" burner. I used to burn things with it. ;)

I also used to mix some chemicals and make things turn pretty colors.

Oh, wait. That last part was the egg dying at Easter. I'm sure there will be some "study" out there soon that shows someone has died (or dyed) from it, and then they'll ban that too. Watch out! We're all gonna dye!!!

Got bad news for you, Moonie: Schools ban peanut butter

If you dig around a bit it is possible to still find fun chemical toys.


Of course this much fun always comes at a price...


Edited to add: Ahh ha! I found a REAL chemistry set that the man has not yet stomped on, it includes an alcohol burner and everything. I might just have to add this to my boys christmas list.

Today I fear that over the phone I might not come across as well as I should

OMG - You can buy AEROGEL from these people!!! Even if I can only get small chunks, I still may buy some (I am not sure what you could do with the granular stuff)

Use it to make one hell of a thermos.

See, I was trying to find what needed to be done to turn the granular material into a "solid" piece. Since the melting temperature of the material is 2,200 degrees F, I am hoping there is some way to make it a solid without using heat.

Nope, I don't think it can be done. Even if you could heat it to melting, you would ruin all the properties that make it special and just end up with a lump of silicates (which by the way I can acquire for you at a much cheaper price).

I should be dead by now. I played regularly with Click-Clacks, Creepy Crawlies (even ate some), slip and slides, water wiggles, lawn darts, and in my friends un-fenced pool.

I loved my Water Wiggle!

And then, my mom threw it away once she heard a news story about a freak accident in which one "strangled" a child somewhere. :rolleyes:

I've played with water wiggles, slip and slides, in backyards with unfenced pools. We rode bikes without helmets, stayed out until the lights came on, rode around in the back of pick-up trucks and cars without seat belts. And we're still here.

When we'd go camping in the dunes, they'd hook a tow rope to a Jeep and drag us around on an old car hood when I was a kid.

Sadly, in today's world, if someone had seen this, they'd call CPS to have you removed. :rolleyes:

I'm glad we got to experience real, unsterilized fun in our days!

We used to ski-jog all the time in the winter, but the way cars are built now it's nearly impossible. I remember one time my sneaker hit a dry patch of road and I went ass over teakettle, but I was lucky and landed in a snowbank.

I used to grab onto moving cars while riding my skateboard.

Also discovered what you get when you mix styrofoam and gasoline :evil:

yeah, same here. we needed something to use for a quick gas-can, so we got the bright idea of just putting it in a styro cooler to move it to the car. probably just as well we never actually got it into the tank that way.

:rolleyes: what a freakin mess that was.

Back in Queens my mother would send me to buy her cigarettes at a convenience store that, if vague memory serves, openly sold child pornography. Stole a lot of baseball cards and candy bars from that place.

My mother's one safety caveat was that I was forbidden to cross Queens Boulevard, which was a fairly large main street. To be safe, I had to go down into the subway and up the other side.

I, too, spent most of my youth without seatbelts. Though I miss the one-arm driving, I think that was kind of stupid considering that as a kid I did hit the windshield once in an accident. Not that changed our habits.

Ah, but used in mischievous ways, what fun that freakin mess can be!

I can say that if you make enough to half fill a crack in the road that is about 2-1/2" wide, and 1-1/2" deep, it will burn for about a 1/2 hour. We found out the hard way as did our neighbors.

You know, I'm sorely tempted to make today's "fear of the day" Kevy.

I really feel sorry for todays sanitized, bubble-wrapped kids. I also am apprehensive about what this bodes for our future as a society.

One need look no further for the cause of global warming than all the SUVs ferrying kids to school who could probably walk, picking up the walkers when there's a drizzle, careening around town on frolics to fund our underfunded schools and caravaning to Staples when the bat signal goes up for glue sticks.

I know the feeling. not being a parent, maybe I dont have a clear idea of what parenting is nowadays, but I keep seeing one example that just for whatever reason bugs me.

its a cox commercial touting wireless TV, communications etc where the parent is taking their child to see Pauly the penguin or some such. the kid at every turn has a video screen in front of him...in the home, in the car, even in his stroller. then freaks out when he encounters the real thing.

they make it sound like 'this is the wave of the future'.....Im not so sure its a good thing and it sort of rubs me the wrong way every time I see it.

dunno, but Im not sure a constant stream of video (vs maybe a book or some paper and crayons?) is really something they should be "selling" in this way. if Im out of touch, feel free to say so.

It is getting challenging. We had to special order our Minivan (yes, I drive a minivan) to get one without a DVD player in the back. We also do not allow ipods and other electronic gear to be used in the car. Short drives, cross country drives it makes no difference. Personally I think it's important driver training to get the kids used to paying attention to what's around them while riding in a car.

Just my two cents on this one, I have a love hate relationship with this commercial.
Becuase thats excatly what many kids do.
They love Mickey, Chuckee, or whomever on the tv, but when faced with the real live thing, run screaming in terror.

The only part of that commercial I disagreed with was the handheld in the hands of a toddler.
Either way.... many young people around me do just that.

I was following an SUV the other day and the parents were showing their kids, Something's Got to Give. I thought it was a weird choice for kids. But low and behold, two eight or ten year olds watching it in the back seat...
:D

I once saw a guy driving down the 5 watching porn on his dashboard DVD player. Seriously.

I believe it.
A couple of months ago, I heard about some state banning porn on those players.

I love it when the SUVs and minivans in front of me have DVDs on. It gives me something to do when I get bored while driving.

Okay Kevy, now that I'm DYING of curiosity... what happens?

So how far down the 5 did you follow him?

styrofoam melts when it comes in contact with gasoline creating this god awful gooey mess that, since its mixed with gasoline now is much like napalm. its sticky and extremely flamable...not to mention toxic when burning

Susan has oft commented, when hearing of my youthful exploits, about how surprised she is that I am alive today.

We set that up in our neighborhood - at the end of a cul-de-sac. We lit it when a car turned the corner at the top of the cul-de-sac (1/4 mile up) with hopes of it burning out by the time the car got down to the end (this is really funny when you are 13). If I recall correctly, it gave us about a 2 foot flame across the entire width of the street.

It burned for a half hour. We all went to our respective homes after a few minutes when it was no longer funny and we started panicking.

The funny part is that it didn't really phase any of our neighbors - they were used to such antics from us.

Ok, that sounds like fun!

mmm homemade napalm...

note to anyone reading: while it sounds like fun, I am not crazy/dumb enough to do such a thing. as an adult.

Wow, and I thought crazy glue on styrofoam was amusing...

Today I fear I am too patient

It's Tuesday October Twenty third. Today we hear from NASA, the one government agency I typically see as the good guys. Today's fear of the day is:


That's right, Ye shall know the truth and the truth.... well to be honest it might just scare you so we better bury it for your protection.

They even went as far as ordering the consulting company who created the report to purge it.

Why is NASA involved with the airlines?

Planes struck by falling space junk?

My personal fear of the day - that I might be making too many assumptions, or rather I'm not challenging enough of them.

The fear of the truth is the fear of the day but if the report had been released then fear of runway collisions would be the fear of the day.

I'm not too bothered by the latter one. Even if the risk is increased at those airports it still appears to be pretty small as I don't recall the last time there was a runway collision at SFO.

The Fear of the day:

The Heavens themselves.

Apparently earth is looking down the barrel of a galactic shotgun.

Oh lord, are teh Vogons coming again?

Maybe we should build a Death Star and go after it first.



Yeah, I know, Death Star doesn't blow up stars.

Humm, what would you use to take out a star?

Off the top of my head the Zinder nullifier is the only science fiction weapon I can think of that would do the job. Well that and Obie of course.....

hmm.. when is doomsday now? didn't the Aztecs predict the world would end soon? we have how many "bullets"... but which one will hit us ending humanity?

What about that missile thing Malcolm McDowell used in Star Trek 7?

I fear that robots are stealing my luggage.

I fear the passage of time

I fear da fur pie.

At the start of the Presidential election cycle, I think it's time to resurrect this thread.

I had two options for "Fear of the day"

1. Tanker stolen with over 3,000 gallons of fuel stolen

or

2. Cybercom commander: Major cyber attack coming...

And the winner is:

I'd start with reservations at Spago...

Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth novels eventually see the development of "quantumbuster" weapons that can take out stars. The novels are all way too long but have good implementations of the Singularity (thus a millennia spanning epic that can have some continuous characters), wormhole travel, an actual alien intelligence and a Dyson sphere.

I saw the movie "Contagon" and was pleasantly surprised. Not because it was a good movie, but because it was interestingly true to what it would be like to deal with a global pandemic, without the horiffic fear factor, total extinction of man kind, or brain eating zombies.

No brain eating zombies?! That sucks.

It's a new year, sure to be filled to the brim with new fears!

Today we have:

Deadly Headphones.

The headlines scream:

Injuries while walking with headphones tripled, study finds

Funny thing, you have to read deep into the article to find this little gem:

Happy Halloween!

I'll bet you can guess the "Fear of the day". Yup. Poisoned candy being given out to kids. I heard a warning about this grave issue on the radio this morning.

Here is a great article debunking this fear.

Looking back at this post now that I have two young adults who have been driving for a number of years. Yeah, I'm a friking genius.

Well well look at this. Back in 2011 I selected "Cyber Attacks" in a presidential election as the fear of the day.

Cue Twilight Zone theme.

Tonight it was a desert goose-hawk